Bright Moments

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Phronesis bassist Jasper Høiby has a new album, Fellow Creatures, on Edition Records; "Bird Is the Worm" blogger Dave Stapleton interviewed Høiby for the indie download site Bandcamp, where you can hear and buy the album. Here's a video for the track "Little Song for Mankind":

On August 12, Réne Marie stopped into the NPR studios in Washington to perform a set for the Tiny Desk Concert:

Finally, in album news: guitarist Charlie Hunter assembled a new quartet with Kirk Knuffke, trumpet; Marshall Fowlkes, trombone; and Bobby Previte, drums, for a CD on the GroundUP Music label entitled Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched In the Mouth. Here's a track:

And Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork are among those touting Donny McCaslin's forthcoming album, Beyond Now, due out in October, which will include two Bowie covers, "Warszawa" and "A Small Plot of Land." You can read an interview with Donny (and hear "Small Plot") at EW, and you can pre-order the album from Motema.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Okay, sure: we'll start this post in the traditional way, with news about past guests. For instance, over at Jazz Speaks (the weblog of New York City's venerable performance space, the Jazz Gallery), bassist Linda Oh talks about her upcoming album (and playing with Pat Metheny).

Then there's Matt Wilson (below), who has a beautiful new album, Beginnings of a Memory, with a group he's calling Big Happy Family.

The "memory" is of Wilson's beloved wife Felicia, who died in 2014, and the "family" are a dozen members of his three working bands--Felicia's favorite players, who came together to play some of her favorite tunes. Wilson talks about the album in the June issue of DownBeat. Here's the title track:

There are other albums out, too (or coming out soon), by Rez Abbasi, with a new ensemble called "Junction":

Plus, vocalist Rene Marie has just released a full album of her own compositions:

And if you'd like to hear Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth, Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom, and/or the Vijay Iyer Trio again, then you might be interested in WNYC's New Sounds podcast, since they all appear on the same episode devoted to "Groove-Based Jazz":

Otherwise, though, our news this month isn't about past guests, but about old friends from closer to home. To wit:

Last month, longtime jazz fanatic and radio programmer (at KZYX in Fort Bragg) Doug Moody was named a "Jazz Hero" by the Jazz Journalists Association. A co-owner (and Senior Vice President for Marketing) of North Coast Brewing Company, Doug has also been one of the RJA's most stalwart supporters since the very beginning of our ten-year existence. As beneficiaries of his largesse, we're in good company: North Coast supports jazz presenters, performers, and educators all over California and all across the country, not least through its sales of its "Brother Thelonious" abbey-style ale:

These days, Doug and North Coast are presenting jazz, too, at their "Sequoia Room" in Fort Bragg. Road trip, anyone?

Finally, bassist Shao Way Wu left Arcata a couple of years ago for the bright lights of Portland, where he's been illuminating that city's own local jazz scene. He's got a new album, Canvas Sky, with his bass-piano duo "Tar Beach." You can buy it on Bandcamp after you listen to it here:

Monday, March 14, 2016

Michael Blake's new album, Fulfillment, a suite of compositions for large ensemble on the themes of immigration and exclusion, is out on the Canadian label Songlines. Read about the project at the label's website, where you can also download a free track. Here's another cut, "Sea Shanty"--

--which is one of three tunes from Fulfillment that are part of a Michael Blake playlist at Songlines' Soundcloud page.

The New York Times calls Melissa Aldana's brand-new release, Back Home, her "finest album" yet. It's available at the usual online vendors (and, if you ask for it, at your local record store). Read the transcript of an amazing conversation between her and Sonny Rollins at Burning Ambulance.

The April issue of Jazz Times focuses on bassists--and it includes profiles of Chris Lightcap (Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth, Regina Carter's Southern Comfort) and Scott Colley (Antonio Sanchez Migration), a "Before and After" listening session with Eureka's own Trevor Dunn (Nels Cline Singers), and Linda Oh picking (and discussing) some of her favorite bass duo tracks. Select content from the magazine will go online April 5.

And speaking of bassists: out March 18 from Omer Avital is Abutbul Music. (Abutbul is one of Avital's ancestral surnames.) DownBeat magazine's "Editor's Choice" review says that some of the album's tunes mix genres, "mov[ing] through various guises, switching rhythms and meters with a dancer’s precision," while "[o]thers hone in on a single genre and explore it through Avital’s distinctly groove-filtered lens." Case in point: "Bed-Stuy," which "incorporates hushed, Mingus-flavored swing":

Preparing for his last record, Intents and Purposes (an album of acoustic covers of classic 70s fusion tunes), inspired guitarist Rez Abbasi to compose some electric "fusion" of his own. The results are on a new album, Behind the Vibration, out May 20th:

Finally: the Donny McCaslin Group is the subject of a story on the cover of the May issue of DownBeat (the same issue also contains an interview with drummer Allison Miller).

Donny and the rest of the band also talked about their experience with the late David Bowie (they're the core group on Bowie's celebrated swan song, Blackstar) on a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour:

March 1-6, Myra Melford becomes the latest RJA veteran to be honored with a weeklong run at New York's storied Village Vanguard (with her band Snowy Egret, which opened our current season last September.) In a preview for the Times, Nate Chinen calls Melford "a pianist-composer of restless imagination and rigorous execution," leading an ensemble whose "ranks consist of improvisers with a keen ear for textural interplay." If by some chance you'll be in New York the first week of March, then go see Myra (and Ron Miles, and Liberty Ellman, and Stomu Takeishi, and Tyshawn Sorey) there and say hello...

More new releases: Allison Miller's new album with Boom Tic Boom, Otis Was a Polar Bear, comes out in April, just days before she shows up in Arcata, BTB in tow. Pre-order it from Royal Potato Family Records, and watch Allison sitting in with the 8G Band on Late Night with Seth Meyersall week long, the week of February 22d (photo here). Here's the album's title track:

Also out in April: Parallax, a new one from Phronesis. Preview/pre-order:

Sunnyside Records has reissued (and remastered) a terrific 1987 trio date from Fred Hersch called Sarabandewith the late, great Charlie Haden and drummer Joey Baron. The re-release is dedicated to Haden:

Friday, December 18, 2015

It's been a while, we know. We've missed lots of honors bestowed, new CDs released, and so on. But here's what's going on right now:

We mentioned last time that pianist and composer Wayne Horvitz turned 60 this year, and he's been getting a lot of well-deserved attention, including an appearance on NPR Music's Jazz Night in America(click that link for a half-hour video and an hourlong podcast) and a story on All Things Considered:

If, to your eternal shame, you missed Matt Wilson's Christmas Tree-O at KBR a couple of weeks ago, you can console yourself with Matt's appearance on the Straight No Chaser podcast two days later. Oh, and I suppose you could fly out to New York City and catch the Tree-O in residence at Jazz Standard, where their guest this year will be pianist/composer/bandleader/MacArthur "Genius"/Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran.

Trumpeter Dave Douglas has released a video of his quintet performing the spiritual "Deep River," shot at the studio sessions for the album Brazen Heart. (In addition to saxophonist Jon Irabagon, the latest incarnation of Douglas's quintet features several other past guests of the RJA: Matt Mitchell on piano, Linda Oh on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums.)

Wayne Horvitz has a new album out in time for his 60th birthday--and he's celebrating by giving away 52 free tracks (one each week). Read all about it.

You know by now that RJA veterans show up in the jazz monthlieson a pretty regular basis. The latest to do so is Fred Hersch, the subject of a cover story in the October issue of DownBeat.

That same number includes a feature on Cécile McLorin Salvant, who is marking the release of a fabulous new album, For One to Love, on Mack Avenue Records. It's a serious contender for jazz record of the year. See a "trailer" for the album on Salvant's website, and watch a video of a track from the album right here:

Actually, there's a bunch of new albums out (or about to be), including one from the Dave Douglas Quintet, Brazen Heart. Here's the title track:

Meanwhile, Kevin Whitehead reviewed the fourth album by Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross:

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